The present invention relates generally to the provision of information services in radiocommunication systems and, more particularly, to efficiently providing user group functionality services in conjunction with existing radiocommunication services and systems.
The cellular telephone industry has made phenomenal strides in commercial operations in the United States as well as the rest of the world. Growth in major metropolitan areas has far exceeded expectations and is rapidly outstripping system capacity. If this trend continues, the effects of this industry""s growth will soon reach even the smallest markets. In addition to a commercial demand for increased capacity and quality of service, these trends also suggest a demand for an increase in the types of services provided by radiocommunication systems.
As users become more accustomed to using radiocommunication devices, their expectations regarding the capabilities of these devices also grows. For example, many users expect, or will come to expect, that cellular telephones should provide at least the same types of service that are provided by conventional, land-line telephone systems. One example of a popular landline based service which Applicant also anticipates will be widely desired by radiocommunication device users is the so-called conference or group call, wherein a plurality of users having different terminals are connected together and able to transmit and receive to all of the other active members of the group.
To implement group call functionality in radiocommunication systems, a user group identification (UGID) code is assigned to each of a number of different subsets of mobile stations. Consider the conceptual example depicted in FIG. 1. Therein, a plurality of mobile stations (MS) 10 are logged-in, i.e., powered on, registered with the system using the system""s registration procedure and listening to a control channel, via respective base stations (BS) 30. MS 20 is not currently logged-in this example, e.g., MS 20 is powered off. Each mobile station in this example belongs to one of user groups 1, 2 or 3 (although those skilled in the art will appreciate that mobile stations can, of course, belong to multiple user groups or no user groups). When a call is requested for a particular user group, a page message is transmitted from the system in areas where users in this particular group have registered. In the example of FIG. 1, suppose that a user group call is requested for UGID=1. Then, the page message includes the UGID for this particular user group, such that mobile stations which are not in this particular user group ignore the page message. For example, the MSs having UGID=2 or 3 in FIG. 1 would ignore this particular paging message.
For mobile stations that receive the page which are within this particular user group, an indication is generated at the mobile station to inform the user that he or she has received a group call page. This indication can, for example, take the form of a tone generated by the mobile station. If the user acknowledges the page, then a page response message is transmitted to the system. Finally, a channel assignment for the group call is granted to the responding mobile stations within the group of interest.
One problem associated with this group call service is that some mobile stations which support users within the relevant user group will not inform their respective users of the group call. This may occur for several reasons, e.g., the mobile stations may not be logged-in to receive the page, the mobile station may not be within the service area where pages are delivered, or the mobile stations may be logged-in but the user may not be in the proximity of the unit to receive an alert. Since these pages may not be repeated by the system, these users may miss their opportunity to join the group call. Using the above example, MS 20 in FIG. 1 will not receive the page for the group call associated with UGID=1 and, if it logs in to the system during the group call, has no way of informing its user of the existence of this call.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide techniques and systems for providing an indication of which user groups currently have established group calls in radiocommunication systems to avoid the problem wherein an uninformed user is loses an opportunity to access an ongoing user group call. Moreover, it would further be desirable to provide group users and group managers with additional information related to group calls to enhance this valuable service.
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide techniques which support user group functionality in a manner which provides individual users with the opportunity (and information needed)to join group calls at any time. One exemplary embodiment of the present invention transmits information regarding active user group connections on a broadcast channel, i.e., a point-to-multipoint resource. In this way a mobile station can update its information regarding active user groups by listening to the broadcast channel, e.g., after power-on. The mobile station can then provide an indication to its user regarding active user groups of interest and the user can determine whether or not to join the active user group connection.
According to another exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the indication regarding the existence of an active user group call can be provided on a point-to-point channel rather than a broadcast channel. Examples of point-to-point implementations of the present invention include providing active user group call indications along with registration responses from the system, or using short message service (SMS) functionality.
In addition to providing an indicator of which user groups (if any) have active group calls, exemplary embodiments of the present invention provide for the transmission and reception of auxiliary information which better enables the recipient to understand the nature of the active group call. For example, this auxiliary information may include one or more of the number of users in the group currently connected, the elapsed time of the group call, the identity of users participating in the group call, information regarding the topic of the group call, as well as other types of information described below.
Still other exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to the terminals or mobile stations which are adapted to use the group call information transmitted by the system. Such terminals or mobile stations according to the present invention provide various types of alerts for informing users of established group calls, as well as providing the user with the auxiliary information described above. In some exemplary embodiments, the user can selectively enable different alerts to be used to inform him or her of the existence of a group call based on a priority level of the call.
Yet other exemplary embodiments of the present invention focus on management of group call information. Each user group may have some particular central management facility which can participate in coordinating communication within the group. This facility can cooperate with the radiocommunication system to adjust, for example, the types and values of the auxiliary information transmitted to the users within the group.